“The bottom line is no woman is going to want an abortion after seeing a sonogram.” — Francesco Angelo, medical director of the Family Planning Center in Mineola, as quoted in the New York Times.
This startling admission, made years ago in (of all places) the New York Times, reminds all of us of the transformative power of ultrasounds. There are many—innumerable, actually—more recent examples. However, coming, so to speak, from the horse’s mouth, it is an admission that to the pro-abortionist, keeping the abortion-minded woman away from her unborn child is Quality Job #1.
Even the most spiritually dead abortionist has moral intuitions. You keep them alive and well, tapping on the windows of souls today just as loudly and persistently as they did in the mid-19th century when slavery was legal.
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In our heart of hearts almost all of us know that both abortion and slavery are moral cancers and that, thankfully, neither is “rooted in the soil of American Democracy.”
Much of our job can be encapsulated this way: successfully bringing the uneasiness to the surface, that moral discomfort that abortion elicits in people of good will—and even those who are not.
It’s not a question of instilling this in people; it’s already there, as the quotation from the abortion clinic operator that begins this article demonstrates.
So, what’s our task? To help people to recognize that this tacit understanding is not something to be ignored or repressed but acknowledged for what it is: the better angels of their nature at work.
We’re talking many times about everyday interactions, the kind of casual conversations that most often are unplanned but offer rich possibilities. But, to be clear, it’s very important that I be specific about both what I don’t mean and the target audience that I am speaking about.
I am not suggesting placing your principles in mothballs or substituting your pro-life education for a quick course in Sound Bites 101. Principles power this movement and information is the fuel.
Nor is it to suggest that what has worked can’t continue to touch the hearts and the minds of Americans. We’ve changed the contours of the debate in this nation with a multifaceted approach that is the model of effectiveness and simplicity.
Nor am I ignoring the vital role of political and legislative action. No organization knows better than National Right to Life what crucially important benefits flow from publicly fighting for what we believe in in these arenas.
Please understand also that even when we are speaking to those who already share our perspective, much of what follows applies to them, albeit in a different way. They are already in the fold and/or merely need the tools to make them more effective.
To return to our colleagues-in-the-making…They need information they can quickly assimilate, a local organization they can immediately join, and a primer on fetal development that they can absorb in a general way in an hour or less.
They have invited us into their homes, so to speak. Since we’ve already passed this most important threshold, the primary barrier to overcome is the vast range of everyday activities that makes it difficult for people to appreciate how important it is to carve out time to serve the cause of unborn babies and the medically dependent elderly.
So, what am I talking about? How we win over people, often times very informally, who are not currently in our Movement. Put another way, this is about how to soften the soil that may otherwise be too hard for the “seed” – – the truth about the unborn – – to take root.
Allow me to offer Four Lessons.
Lesson Number One is that far more important that what you say is who you are.
If you see yourself as a salesman or saleswoman, the most important thing that I’ve learned in 45+ years in this Movement is that you can’t close the deal, so to speak, if you can’t get in the door.
By that I mean it’s not necessarily what you or I say (especially initially), but who we are and how we present ourselves that almost always will decide whether someone will give any consideration to what comes out of our mouths.
You know this already, but if we come across as judgmental know-it-alls, why would anyone want to be in our presence one nanosecond longer than he or she has to be?
If Lesson One is be the kind of human being you’d like to be around, Lesson Number Two is to know your stuff because opportunities will occur.
Lesson Three is that with the exception of hard-core pro-abortion types, you will be utterly amazed how “permeable” many people are – – that is, how few people are locked into a thought-out, well-reasoned position.
They have a smidgeon of information and a “well, I think…” way of looking at the issue.
I’m not saying they will run over to our corner at the drop of a hat. What I am saying is that, approached respectfully, they will not run away.
What is really intriguing here, by the way, is that it is not uncommon to talk to people you’ve known for years – – people who have never agreed with you or anything – – and to suddenly find common ground.
Lesson Four is that our culture is awash in possibilities to gently, matter-of-factly, persuasively make the case for the unborn.
As I have said to many people, I doubt if there are many pro-lifers at the networks or the major newspapers and magazines.
But even they are not immune to the power of ultrasounds or the dangers that mifepristone poses to women. So, when a pro-life argument makes its appearance, it’s not the result of a cabal of pro-life engineers. It’s just that the ultrasounds carry a powerful pro-life message: that there’s a creature in there who looks amazingly like a baby post-birth.
We can and we should steep ourselves in the basics of fetal development – – the ABCs of our common developmental journey – – so that we can converse intelligently. But no words coming out of our mouths could ever match the impact of that commercial where the mom joyfully, almost reverently “watches” her unborn child.
Whew!
A final thought, one that has been brought to my attention much of late.
Surely the unborn child and the elderly woman in a nursing home are deserving of care and protection irrespective of whether you and I make their case in a winsome way. But human nature doesn’t work that way.
If our audience finds us or our approach unappealing, most often the real loser will be the defenseless human beings for whom we are trying to recruit new defenders.
While young people have heard the pro-abortion mantra their entire lives, mostly they simply aren’t buying. (While many adults will salute the Politically Correct Flag when it is run up the flagpole, it’s my experience that most kids scorn PC thinking.)
Why? Because they know the pain, the hurt, the disillusionment that so often accompanies an abortion. They can’t be snowed: abortion kills babies and hurts women.
And it is the innate idealism of youth that compels them to challenge a self-centered, inverted mentality, the kind that says women and men first, children last.
Appeal to that idealism. It will win them over and they will carry the day.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.
